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‘I came to scare you,’ Israeli author says |
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Written by Atara Beck
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Tuesday, 24 November 2009 |
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TORONTO – “Unlike any other lie or libel speech against Jews – and there were enough – these lies and libels…aim not to just say bad things about Jews, but are used for political aims,” declared Hadassa Ben Itto, author of The Lie that Wouldn’t Die: One Hundred Years of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Speaking at a lunch-hour lecture at Minden Gross LLP during Holocaust Education Week at an event organized by the Speakers Action Group and the Canadian Jewish Civil Rights Association, Ben Itto, a retired Israeli judge – she had been an acting justice in the Supreme Court, deputy president of the District Court in Tel Aviv and president of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists – discussed how the Protocols was very well written, translated into every language in the world except Hebrew and used to instigate the most virulent Jew hatred, including that which presently exists in the Muslim world. The book is a best seller in the Arab world and its message reaches illiterates through television programs, including romantic soap operas, she said.
Hitler wrote about the Protocols in Mein Kampf and it became a major theme in Nazi philosophy, she told the audience. In fact, American antisemite and Nazi sympathizer Henry Ford included articles based on the Protocols in his publication, Dearborn Independent; he published more than 90 articles that were later to be The International Jew.
“After WWII, we thought ‘Never Again,’ but we ignored things. The ones who picked up the torch were the Muslim extremists,” she explained. “The plan is alive…the charter of Hamas mentions the Protocols as the reason to exterminate the Jews.”
“Yes, I came to scare you,” she said.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad distributes the Protocols to its embassies around the world, she added, explaining that the Protocols and Holocaust denial go together. The book, which claims Jewish power and a Jewish conspiracy, contradicts the Holocaust “because they want to rob us of our victimhood.”
Protocols was used by three big movements – Communism, Nazism and now Radical Islam, she continued.
According to the author, the media speaks in sound bytes and is very biased, and it is nearly impossible to reach public opinion. “What I think is a disaster is political correctness,” she stated.
Ben Itto maintains that the only way to reach public opinion on this issue would be through the courts, as there are hate laws against incitement all over the world, although in the US, “the First Amendment is not a law; it’s a religion.
“We can’t sue Arab countries, but we can sue publications in the West.”
A feature film based on Ben Itto’s book is now being made in Hollywood, she said. |
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 02 December 2009 )
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